


Upsoaring

by Salchat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Bar Room - will there be a brawl?, Friendship, Grumpy John Sheppard, Humor, M/M, Memories, Musical entertainment, Pre-Slash, Small fluffy animals, non-verbal communication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 18:01:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30059391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salchat/pseuds/Salchat
Summary: John's nose was bleeding and it was McKay's fault.  Again.  Why couldn't the guy keep his stupid mouth shut?
Relationships: Rodney McKay/John Sheppard
Comments: 19
Kudos: 43





	Upsoaring

John's nose was bleeding and it was McKay's fault. Again. Why couldn't the guy keep his stupid mouth shut?

Last week it had been the Kendaris he'd upset. John and the team’d been trying to make a trade for food and McKay had taken offence at some yellow fruit that had an unfortunate resemblance to a lemon, and turned out to have an even more unfortunate status as sacred. He'd thrown the fruit in question back in their hosts' faces, or at least forcibly pushed away the platter, resulting in copious juiciness all over the serving boy. And as team leader, it was up to John to make the profuse apology, take the fall, or in this case, endure the humiliation of having to kneel before an altar for hours upon end, thanking the Gods for their most delicious fruit and rubbing sticky yellow pulp into his hair and face.

John had been fuming by the time they'd let him and his team go, firstly because sitting on the hard stone floor for that long was hell on the knees, secondly because he suspected his skin had just got started on a nasty reaction to the juicy moisturizer, thirdly because the locals hadn't given him a crib-sheet and he'd had to improvise his fruit-praising invocation and fourthly, because certain beneficiaries of his self-sacrifice seemed to find his situation amusing.

He'd begun with "Uh, yeah, so thanks for the real nice fruit. It's, uh, just so cool. Tastes a bit like that Kiwi-strawberry Gatorade, which isn't my favourite, but hey, each to their own. Anyway, yeah, real cool fruit. Um…" At that point there had been a suppressed explosion behind him, which he recognised as a McKay expression of mirth. John had gritted his teeth and continued, determinedly, touching on the fruit's colour (summed up as yellowy yellowiness), its texture (like a melon but wetter) and expounding at length on the pungent juice which he was sure must be good for his hair and wasn't stinging his eyes, no, not one bit, no sir.

Rodney had giggled and sniggered through it all and John had felt his face redden both from anger and the irritant juice. His voice had shaken with tamped-down rage so that when at long last a gong was struck signalling the end of his purgatory, the locals had bowed to him and told him that they had never heard such a passionate speech. He’d sniffed and wiped away tears from his streaming eyes, which streamed even more from the juice on his hands, and the priests had blessed him for his extreme piety and they’d got a decent trade deal after all.

John took the handkerchief away. Blood trickled down his upper lip. He touched his nose and winced. The throbbing was working its way up inside his head and he was glad the place was dimly lit because his growing headache wouldn't have appreciated bright lights. He bunched up the stained fabric, replaced it to dam the flow and scowled at Rodney, who didn’t see because his face was stuffed in a pewter tankard.

“You could try ice, sir,” said Ford.

“Does this place look like it has an ice machine?”

“No.”

The bar was basic - no electric light or heat. Not the most primitive place in the many worlds of the Pegasus galaxy, but far from the most advanced. The locals seemed to like it, though. Every table was full and, had John been in a better mood and preferably not in pain, he would have enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, encouraged by the smiles of the barmaids and barmen and the gentle background tinkle of some kind of musical instrument.

Teyla wove her way through the crowd and sat down next to him. “Has it stopped?”

“No.”

“I’m sure Rodney did not intend -”

“I’m sure he did.”

She gave up her mediation attempt. Rodney had turned his chair away and was feigning interest in the musical entertainment - the coward.

“I have ordered food,” said Teyla. “Soup and fish and a dessert made from milk and bread.”

John grunted.

Teyla sighed.

Ford mumbled something about finding the bathroom, pushed back his chair and left.

John regarded Rodney's rounded shoulders with disfavour. He hadn't even twitched at the mention of food. Maybe it was finally sinking in how pissed John was with him, and with their recent dismal mission record. Before the Kendaris, there'd been the Jaydish people, and another triumph of Rodneyness over diplomacy. 

Coming through an orbital Gate, they'd spotted a few scattered villages and some Ancient ruins that McKay had liked the look of. Teyla, in her capacity as cultural adviser, had quite rightly said they should get the locals' permission before they started poking around. They'd landed and made contact and the people had been very friendly. They’d had a laid-back, hippyish vibe and it seemed like there wouldn’t be any problem checking out the ruins.

After an exchange of high-fives (or whatever the inhabitants called the gesture), they’d all sat down in a circle and taken turns to say how great life was (John got away with a goofy smile and a thumbs up) and then they listened to some tunes which could only be described as ‘groovy’, played on a set of long didgeridoo-type pipes. The guy next to John smoked some fragrant weed the whole time and after a while he put his arm around John's shoulders and confessed his love. John, having inhaled quite a bit of the smoke, was pretty cool with the whole idea but was vaguely glad he’d told Ford to stay alert and watch from a distance.

And then Rodney had ruined it all.

“That’s enough! Enough with the psychedelic drugs and the trance music! Can we please just cut to the chase, cut the crap and cut out all the waste-of-time social ritual? _Are_ you going to let us investigate the ruined Ancient facility which can’t be of any possible interest to you but might well be crucial for us - or _not?_ ”

John cringed in remembrance. The answer turned out to be a resounding, offended, _‘Not,’_ and they were lucky to be huffily escorted back to the Jumper and allowed to leave.

He still wasn’t sure why Rodney had been quite so… Rodneyish. It was a bit much, even for him. The situation could have turned nasty very quickly if the locals had decided to take violent action. He’d have to talk to Rodney. Or maybe he’d get Teyla to do it.

Ford had found and returned from the bathroom. "My advice?” he said. “Hold it in."

"Why? Poor sanitation or dubious activities?" asked Rodney. "No, don't answer that. I'll have to go sooner or later anyway and I'm not risking the local hedgerows. Not after that time with that alien ivy and the rash which went all the way from -"

"Rodney, please, we do not need to hear it again," said Teyla.

"But Carson said he'd never seen -"

"We know."

"Oh. Well. Never mind then."

"Hey, there's a piano over there, Dr McKay. That's weird, isn't it? Do you think the Ancients brought pianos from Earth?"

John smirked behind his handkerchief. He didn't know if Ford was deliberately winding Rodney up and didn't care. The scientist's mouth opened and closed as if a flotilla of contradictions had jammed in his throat.

"There's just so much wrong with that raft of nonsense, I don't even know where to start." Rodney placed the fingertips of one hand on his forehead and closed his eyes. Ford visibly shrank in his seat. "Let's just deal with the physics, shall we, and set the historical gaffes aside?"

Ford breathed a nervous laugh and ran a hand around his collar.

"Okay, so, firstly, I think you're confusing being in a different galaxy with being in a different universe. The laws of physics still apply here, specifically those regarding the frequency of audible waveforms. Not to go into too much detail, but there are only so many ways of arranging tones so that they'll make sense to the average human ear."

Ford's face had frozen, like a deer facing a hunter. No, John decided, a fawn; a little Bambi that's been shot, stuffed and mounted. It would have been funny if John's nose hadn't been throbbing in time to the music. Teyla had clearly zoned-out, one leg crossed over the other, her foot gently bouncing to the same rhythm as his pulses of pain.

"The Athosians, for example, base their music around modes, and in particular the Aeolian mode with its characteristic flattened third and seventh. The Manarian's music is built on the pentatonic scale, that is the black keys on the piano, for those who need such fundamentals explained in the most simplistic way possible." Rodney's fingers were interlinked, his head tipped back in one of his more relaxed 'lecturing to morons' poses. John's face hurt too much to achieve anything remotely resembling relaxation. "And then we have the Genii, whose music is characterised by a mix of influences, no doubt stolen from other cultures, or possibly taken under duress, wrested by main force, extracted under torture, as is their wont."

The pain had lodged at the centre of John’s forehead and each strident word was like a hammer-blow in his skull. "McKay."

"If, as you say, the instrument we can hear has a keyboard closely resembling a piano - arranged into twelve half steps, with one scale being placed conveniently for the fingers and five keys raised to be used to access other tonalities - the only wonder is that we haven't come across anything like it sooner, human hands and ears being what they are both here and in the Milky Way. My guess…" He paused and cocked his head to one side.

"McKay!"

"My guess is that these primitives have, surprisingly, mastered the art of equal temperament, but still employ a basic single escapement mechanism."

Ford's head twitched from the front entrance, to the door behind the bar, to the way out to the bathrooms. "I count three at least."

"Not escape route, moron!"

_"McKay!"_

"What?"

"Knock it off!"

“Knock what off?”

“Look, you’ve already done enough damage today and yammering on like that isn’t making my head feel any better.”

Rodney opened his mouth and shut it again. “Well. I’ll just take my unwelcome presence away, then.”

“Rodney, you do not need to -”

“Yes, Teyla. Yes, I think I do. I’ll go and talk to the musician. And perhaps meet with more understanding from someone who might conceivably have a sensitive disposition similar to my own.”

Rodney whisked himself away from the table in the direction of the music. John watched his progress, eyeballing the crowd to either side of his friend to make sure nobody else was watching for the wrong reasons. Rodney stopped and his head bobbed and his hands waved. The musician, hidden by the crowd, was getting the full-on McKay enthusiasm.

“Rodney did not mean for you to get hurt, John.”

He knew that Teyla’s particular brand of oil on troubled waters was just what his team needed, but John’s whole head hurt and he wasn’t done being pissed.

“No, but if he’d thought about it at all before mouthing off, I’m pretty sure our genius scientist would have come up with a fair working hypothesis: ‘If I insult the big, mean guy, Sheppard’ll get punched in the face.’” Teyla’s eyes went on some kind of rolling mission, but John didn’t really know if she was annoyed with him or agreeing with him or what. Not like with McKay, when even if it was just a tiny twitch of his left eyebrow John knew what he meant and got the joke. “I’m a fair man, Teyla. I freely admit that everything that guy had on his stall, marked up as ‘Treasures of the Ancients’ was a great big pile of crap -”

“Festering crap, sir.”

“Thank you, Ford. Yeah. A great big pile of festering crap. But McKay didn’t have to say it to the man’s face, did he? He didn’t have to get right up close and personal and call the guy out as a big fat faker of the worst kind -”

“A miserable, cheating, fraudster,” added Ford.

“No, he didn’t have to say that either.” John sniffed and wiped at his upper lip. “But McKay keeps on saying whatever the hell he likes because he knows one of us, usually me, will take the hit instead of him. Literally.” He gestured with his red-and-white handkerchief. He couldn’t see Rodney. “Ford, go see what’s happened to McKay. Keep an eye on him.”

“Sir.” Ford got up and dutifully tracked Rodney’s path through the crowd.

“It is true that Rodney’s emotions often overwhelm him.”

“Overwhelm him? It’s like they have a direct line to his mouth, by-passing his brain.”

“He is a man of great feeling.” Teyla pushed the handle of her tankard this way and that, with the tip of one finger. “But although his feelings often appear a little self-centred -"

“A little?”

“- he is also a speaker of truth. And sometimes truth needs to be spoken, however painful it may be to hear.”

“Not this time. And I got most of the pain.”

“Rodney cares about the team a great deal. And about you.”

“Yeah.” It came out more snarly than he intended.

“John, you know this to be true.”

John pushed two fingers hard into the furrow between his eyes. “Yeah. I know.”

“When we visited Kendar, he was very concerned for you.”

_“Concerned?_ He laughed, Teyla. He laughed his ass off the whole time I was doing my ‘Ode to a Fruit’.”

“He walked close beside you all the way back to the Gate and guided you around obstacles several times.”

“Did he?” John’s eyes had been stinging so fiercely he didn’t remember much about the mission once he’d been allowed to stagger away from the altar. There had been a guiding hand on his arm, though, hadn’t there? Or at least, he hadn’t fallen, and he’d been practically blind with both eyelids swollen right up.

“Talk to him, John.”

“Yeah.”

“John…”

“Okay, I’ll talk. When my face feels less like it’s been hit by a truck. Where’s that food got to?” 

“I will go and see,” said Teyla.

Food would be good. Maybe he'd feel less like letting rip with his P-90 when he'd eaten. John took the cloth away from his nose and picked up his tankard. The brew it contained was a rich, dark brown and edged with either froth or scum - you couldn’t be too fussy in places like this. He put his lips to the cool metal and took a mouthful. A complex, malty, roasty taste spread across his tongue and tingled around his teeth; not bad.

A tickle on his upper lip announced that his nose hadn’t given up yet.

“Crap.” He wiped it with the cloth.

A flicker of grey and white caught John’s eye. Through the lamplit swirls of pipe-smoke, something moved on one of the tables - an animal of some kind, fluffy and lithe, like a fat ferret with long, floppy ears. It wound itself among the tankards and then climbed up an expanse of red, well-filled satin, dived into its owner’s dark, shining curls and reappeared on her other shoulder, the tip of its white tail still twitching where it had entered the thicket. A golden-skinned, heavily ringed hand came up and tickled it under the chin and the creature raised its head in pleasure and then skidded playfully down the shiny fabric of the woman’s dress and beneath the table.

John was about to look away when its head popped up again. And then another head popped up - two of the little ferret-things. Their heads bobbed up and down, together or alternately, down and then up, as if they knew they had an audience. The woman was smiling and laughing, her breasts jiggling up and down behind their barrier of red satin. The animals wove themselves through the tankards once more, then sat up tall and shook their heads, so that their ears flapped about. John’s smile grew. The little things were really cute. Maybe they were for sale somewhere round here and he could take a couple back to Atlantis. Elizabeth would like one.

A jarring, juddering scrape of wood-on-wood didn’t immediately register as anything particularly important, until it was followed by a rhythmic shudder which shook John’s chair and the table, and set rings trembling on the surface of his beer.

“Hey, you!”

The shuddering had stopped and something blotted out the lamplight and cast a shadow over the table. John looked up. And then up a bit more. The face at the summit of the mountainous form was not the kind of face John wanted to be confronted with and certainly not at this angle, an angle which, he suspected, wouldn’t be that much reduced even if he stood up. Conversation had dropped all around the bar room and the music had fallen silent.

John tried for a pleasant, open smile, an effect not easily achieved with a bloody, reddened, swollen nose.

“Can I help you?”

“You!” The man’s finger poked itself for John’s attention very close to his tender face. “...were looking at _my wife!_ ”

A low, murmuring ripple ran throughout the room. John got the feeling this kind of thing happened pretty often. He glanced at the table where the lively pets were still playing. The woman, presumably the wife in question, gave him a happy little wave, as if thanking him for entertaining her husband.

“Uh, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” said John, sticking with the pleasant smile. “I wasn’t looking at your wife, I was looking at her ferrets.”

An audible intake of breath came from the crowd.

“Her _what?_ ”

“Her ferrets, er her, you know!” John pointed to the little animals. “Those things jigging up and down. See?” He glanced back at the distant table. The animals had gone, but the woman was laughing, her breasts undulating as her body shook.

The man’s fists clenched into lumps of granite. His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared so that John could see the insides, flushed angry red. In his peripheral vision he clocked Ford and Teyla, their movements brisk and efficient, heading his way. This could get nasty very quickly. Maybe he could persuade the guy to take it outside, settle it man-to-man? Or mountain to heap of pummelled flesh, if John’s prediction was accurate. Another option would be nice, but he couldn’t think of one that wouldn’t put his team in danger or risk the lives of the surrounding innocent, although avidly watching, civilians.

“Nobody looks at _my wife!_ ”

The situation was reaching crisis-point. The man-mountain reached down toward John - it looked like a collar-hauling was in the offing, probably followed by a face-smashing.

“Look, couldn’t we -”

A sudden storm of music shattered the tension. All heads, even the angry husband’s, turned in the direction of the cascading torrent of tones.

Then the man-mountain shrugged and rumbled and turned back to John. “I’m gonna -”

“Give it a rest, Cevva!” Someone called out of the crowd.

“Yeah, leave the guy alone!”

Clearly this entertainment was sufficiently new and different for the crowd to forego their usual helping of violence.

Cevva backed off a few steps, one hand gripping the other in frustration.

The music continued. 

Maybe it wasn’t the best thing for pacifying an angry husband, but its effect on the rest of the crowd was electric; the drama and the rising, leaping lines held them spellbound. It was so unexpected, so full of movement and energy. 

It was like.... It was like flying, and it took John back, suddenly and without warning, to an S and R mission in Afghanistan. He’d had to hover his bird at the edge of a mountain village, just where the ground fell sharply to the valley below. The rotors kicked up the dust, he couldn’t see, there was one hell of an updraft and it was all he could do to hold the thing steady. But he’d landed and the stranded men had come out of the darkness and the haze and then they were away.

The music took him on, up into the sky, higher and higher, skirting the mountain range and out into the blue-grey half-light of the dawn just breaking at the edge of the distant plain. His fingers curled, one hand round the collective, the other round the cyclic, his feet twitched on the pedals in response to buffeting air currents swirling up from the ridges and dips in the terrain below. He was flying, free and high and fast, so fast. No one would catch him and he would get the men and his crew away and out of danger.

But danger still lurked in the low, split snatches of melody. It grew, flitting and darting behind the line of the hills, and John’s heart sped up and sweat prickled on his brow; but a swelling sense of purpose and determination rose up as well - he wouldn’t let the enemy get a clear shot. He dived and jinked and curled through the foothills, the harsh, grey world flitting past beneath him; he pushed his bird as far as its design would go, forcing it to the edge of its ability. And he gloried in the test of his mind and his body and this wonderful machine; he revelled in the mortal threat - that sharp edge where death and life ran hand in hand, where any slip, any lapse in concentration would tip him and everyone with him over that hard, no-going-back cliff and into the darkness beyond, where so many of his friends had gone before.

Then it was over. As suddenly as it had begun, the music stopped. John blinked and uncurled his hands. His feet relaxed on the phantom pedals. The angry husband had gone. There were some shouts, some stamping feet - people didn’t seem to clap their hands on this particular planet.

Ford and Teyla sat in their places, though he hadn’t noticed them come back.

And Rodney was weaving his way through the tables, nodding here and there at compliments, shaking his head at demands for more. He reached their table and stopped. His eyes fastened on John. Neither Teyla nor Ford spoke. Rodney folded his arms and let them fall again. A smile began to form on his lips but then faded. He opened his mouth, croaked, then cleared his throat.

“I thought… um… I thought some music might distract that barbarian. Which it did. Or I don’t see him anymore, so…” Rodney fidgeted with the hem of his tac vest. “And… er…. I hoped that maybe… maybe you might like it?”

John pushed Rodney’s chair out with his foot and flicked his fingers. Rodney sat.

“Did you like it?”

There were words. They were there, in John’s head, or at least there were confused jabs and swirls stuck behind a barrier of tight lips, aching throat and things and things and more things that he couldn’t speak the names for because he never had before and it would be so hard to get them out, harder than any odds-against, forlorn hope of a mission behind enemy lines. 

But this was Rodney. This was Rodney in front of him, looking directly at him, with his eyes full of a thousand ideas; ideas that he could name and speak in eloquent, elegant, flashing phrases of quickfire prose. His words could dance and his hands would dance along with them and his face, too, would express all he had to say and all he was thinking until his whole body was alive with his thoughts and feelings. 

But just because he could, that didn’t necessarily mean that he would.

The scathing and the derisive flowed easily and often from Rodney’s lips, but the genuine fear and the sorrow were usually held back in his eyes and the tilt of his mouth. And other things might be held deeper within.

“Did you? John?”

“Yeah. I…” John’s lungs couldn’t get a grip on the air. “I was.... Uh…” He looked down at his hands, still curled, ready to take him up and away and his team with him. He dragged his eyes over the ghosts of the collective and the cyclic, over the table, ringed with the impressions of many tankards, and up the ridges and valleys of Rodney’s tac vest. And further. Up past the overhang of his chin, the narrow foothold of his sloping mouth, past his nose, tilted in what might look like disdain, but that John knew was some kind of sharp perimeter defence designed to deter those who would attack.

John’s eyes reached Rodney’s.

“I was flying,” he said.

Rodney’s Adam's apple bobbed. His lips narrowed and relaxed. His shoulders gave a little, jerky shrug, which John knew to signify pleased acknowledgement. “Aufschwung,” he said, finally.

John said nothing.

“It means ‘Upsoaring’. It’s... it’s by Schumann, you know.”

“It was very beautiful, Rodney,” said Teyla.

“Yeah. Amazing, Dr McKay.” Ford reached forward and slapped Rodney’s shoulder.

“Hmm. Well, thank you. It wasn’t easy to play on that instrument. I didn’t think it’d stand the strain, once or twice. No iron frame!”

“It was really cool, Rodney.” Safe words.

“I had no idea you were such an accomplished musician,” said Teyla.

“Yeah, you could have shown those Jaydish guys a thing or two on those weird pipes!” Ford grinned.

Rodney winced. “No. I don’t think so.”

“Huh, yeah, I guess tooting a pipe’s a bit different from tinkling a keyboard,” shrugged Ford.

“Your descriptive prowess astounds me,” said Rodney. “But actually… Although I might have made a fair stab at manipulating a resonating column of air, I’d be happy to forego that particular experience.”

This was something important, a vital piece of intel. “McKay? Something you haven’t told your team leader?”

“Hmm, yes, well at the time you were a little, er, stoned and then more than a little pissed and you’re right - I shouldn’t have reacted the way I did even though…”

“What?”

“Their music. Their particular arrangement of microtones really set my teeth on edge. It was like it was driving into my brain, grabbing hold of my neurons and yanking them around. It gave me a migraine the size of a black hole.”

“Microtones.”

Rodney held up a pinched finger and thumb. “Intervals smaller than the half step; all bunched together in a jarring, clashing dissonance. That's how it sounded to me, anyways. Ah, food." His hands rubbed together and he craned his neck to see the dishes. "Yes, yes, just put it all down, come on, chop chop!”

Rodney took charge of sharing out the various bowls. John smiled at the serving woman, who grimaced and looked away. It had been his most winning smile too.

A sharp snap of fabric brought his attention back to Rodney. His friend dipped his napkin in the water jug.

"Let's get you cleaned up," he said. "You'll give us a bad reputation. Hold still."

He grabbed John's jaw and held the damp cloth against his upper lip, then his chin, then dabbed carefully around his nostrils.

John sat as still as he could and fixed his eyes to one side, on the crowded tables and then the other, on the spirals of steam rising from the bowls of soup, and Teyla and Ford exchanging appreciative murmurs at the taste, and winces at the piping heat.

The cloth was pressed and held against his upper lip once more.

"It's dried on," said Rodney. "Give it a minute."

His friend's face hovered close to John's. John couldn't avoid looking any longer. And as he looked, the corners of the flat lips turned themselves down and the brows twitched together - an apology of sorts.

John's shoulders jerked minutely, his mouth worked into a small grimace: apology accepted, yeah, whatever, move swiftly on. Non-verbal communication - so much better than words. Although…. Some things should be said.

"Uh, that song…"

Rodney winced. " _Please._ Did you hear any vocals? Sorry. You're trying to say something, which is hard for you at the best of times and I'm interrupting. I'll shut up now."

John had lost his momentum.

"Go on."

"It's just, uh, you know… thanks. It distracted that guy from bashing my face in -"

"Further in," said Rodney, studying John's nose. "Not that there's any lasting damage done. I don't think. Sorry, I'm interrupting again."

John glared. "Yes. You are."

"Well?"

"Uh, well, the s- er, music. It was good. Nice." That wasn't what he meant at all. He huffed impatiently.

"Let me interpret. It appealed to something inside you? Stirred some of those hidden depths we're not supposed to know about? Lifted you away from the everyday, hum-drum violent encounters and suspect beer?"

"Yeah, that," said John. "But I like the beer."

"You would. I'm glad. That you liked the Schumann that is. And seeing as you've squeezed out a few painful words… Sorry. I'm sorry about all the recent incidents where I let my mouth engage before my brain'd had a chance to run everything through a 'not getting punched in the face' filter."

"You have one of those?"

"Yes, but vastly underutilised." Rodney turned to his soup and began spooning it into his mouth enthusiastically. He dunked in a bit of bread and hummed happily as it soaked up the creamy liquid.

John decided to start with the fish. He could hardly breathe through his nose and it was difficult to eat, but he felt better - things felt right again. "We could go back to Jaydana. Have a look at those ruins."

"Really? But -"

"They didn't seem like violent types - the Jaydish. We'll apologize again and I'll ask them politely not to play their pipes."

"Or smoke their weed."

"Yeah."

"Hey, I know." Rodney gestured with a chunk of bread. "You could give them a rendition of your 'Ode to a fruit.' They'd like that!"

"Don't push it, McKay."

Rodney smirked. "Ooh, is that pudding?" He finished his soup and began rapidly shovelling in fish, his eyes flicking between the large serving bowl of dessert and his teammates, daring anyone to help themselves before he was ready.

Ford pantomimed wiping his brow. "Well that's a relief."

"Hm, it's certainly filling a few gaps," agreed Rodney.

"Yeah, no, I meant you two."

Rodney looked at John. John shrugged.

"The atmosphere has not been pleasant," said Teyla, dabbing her lips with a napkin. "I am glad you have… settled your differences."

It almost sounded as though Teyla had been going to say something undiplomatic.

"Finished pulling each other's pigtails," muttered Ford.

"Ford! Commanding Officer here? Ring any bells?"

"Sorry, sir."

He didn't look sorry at all.

"There may have been some slight hostility," Rodney conceded. "But no petty resentment would ever really affect the foundations of our friendship. Would it, Sheppard?"

The damage to John's face hadn't felt petty and still didn't. "No," he said, truthfully. "But I might have to punch you in the nose sometime, just to even things up."

"You wouldn't!"

John pushed away the remains of his fish and drew his soup bowl closer. "I might."

"Yeah, right," said Ford, whose beer had certainly taken the edge off his respect for rank. "Don't worry, Dr McKay, the Major'd never hurt _you_. Everyone knows that!"

"Indeed they do, Aiden," agreed Teyla.

John opted not to comment on this. He continued eating. Rodney shared out the pudding, the serving spoon wavering plaintively several times but in the end giving fair portions.

The tinkling sound of music cut through the hum of conversation and Rodney's fingers tapped rhythmically against the surface of the table. Perhaps he would play again. What complex patterns were locked up in that busy brain, ready to be tapped out in leaping melody and driving rhythm by those lively, expressive hands? Maybe he would play something slower this time and it'd remind John of childhood summer days spent lazing on a river bank, or even the dry, windblown desert heat of Iraq or Afghanistan. 

Or maybe, when Rodney played, just maybe John would fly again.


End file.
